Abtaa

Abtaa أبطع
Village
Abtaa
Coordinates: 32°47′30″N 36°9′9″E / 32.79167°N 36.15250°E
Country	Syria
Governorate	Daraa Governorate
District	Daraa District
Nahiyah	Da'el
Population (2004)[1]
• Total	14,283
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
• Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)

Abtaa (Arabic: أبطع‎‎, also spelled Ibta' or Obtei'a) is a town in southern Syria, administratively part of the Daraa District in the Daraa Governorate. Nearby localities include Da'el to the south, Khirbet Ghazaleh to the southeast, Namer to the east, Qarfa to the northeast and al-Shaykh Maskin to the north. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics Abtaa had a population of 14,283.^[1] Its inhabitants are predominantly Muslims.^[2]

History

In 1596 Abtaa appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as Bita' and was part of the nahiya of Bani Malik al-Asraf in the Qada of Hauran. It had an entirely Muslim population consisting of 44 households and 20 bachelors. Taxes were paid on wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and beehives.^[3]

In the 1850s the Western traveler Josias Leslie Porter noted that Abtaa contained a number of large "old houses of basalt, and a few broken columns."^[4]

References

1. General Census of Population and Housing 2004. Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Daraa Governorate. (Arabic)
2. Smith; in Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Second appendix, B, p. 151
3. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 213.
4. Porter, 1858, p. 532.

Bibliography

• Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
• Robinson, Edward; Smith, Eli (1841). Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the year 1838. 3. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.

External links

• Map of town, Google Maps
• Cheik Meskin-map; 21L